Significant Others Read Online Free

Stanley Palladino was my dad.”
    “I wasn’t going to say that.” I frowned; however, I was thinking it. It was still spooky how well my brother could read me.
    Donny had obviously set the place up as a memorial to honor his real father, a World War II flyer who was shot down in a bombing mission over Europe. Donny never knew his real dad. The only remnant of him was an out-of-focus and now faded picture—the only picture Mom had of him. Donny had set it up on the sideboard on a lace runner, in a place of honor, next to his team picture of the Kingfishers, his wedding picture, a photo of Barbara and the children, and a high school graduation shot of Hannah that Marc had taken. That was the only trace of my husband in this condo. Which was appropriate, because I was trying to erase all traces of him from my life. But I’d been in love with my husband for twenty years, so it was hard to break the habit, even for a serious indiscretion.
    I circled the room. It was a throwback to the ’40s. Donny was obsessed with World War II, and it showed in the way the place was decorated.
    “Is this what you’ve been doing down here the last few months?” I asked in disbelief, thinking of all the time he had wasted.
    “These are great books, huh?” Donny said, hefting a particularly bulky volume from the coffee table and placing it gingerly into my hands. He indicated several other books with World War II themes displayed around the room, as well as a wealth of wartime memorabilia hanging on the walls.
    “Look here,” he said eagerly, picking up each book in turn. “ The World at War 1939-45; Bombers: the Aircrew Experience; and Bomber Missions: Aviation Art of World War II. You wouldn’t believe what I had to go through to get these. Go ahead, don’t be afraid to handle them.”
    Flipping through some of the pages of the book in my hand, in an effort to humor my brother, I glanced at color photos of Superfortresses, pin-ups painted on the planes, and personalized jacket art worn by fearless young men dressed in leather flying jackets with fur collars to ward off the cold in the cockpit. My eyes skimmed the words—“dangerous missions,” “strategic targets,” “intrepid bomber pilots.” I tried to muster up some excitement because these books meant something to my brother, but they were echoes of a past I wasn’t part of and couldn’t relate to.
    I returned the book to Donny, who pressed the button on a wall panel that sent soft background music from the 1940s spilling into the living room.
    “I’ve piped the music into every room in the house,” Donny announced proudly. Apparently you couldn’t even go to the bathroom unaccompanied by the big band sound.
    My mother and Donny’s father met at a USO dance at a women’s club in Pittsburgh during the war, and Donny was obviously trying to recreate those happy memories.
    “Your father was very handsome in his uniform,” my mother used to say, when Donny asked about his dad, which was often. “He was an exceptional dancer. He had the most gorgeous green eyes. You have his eyes.” But Mom didn’t have much else to tell about their compatibility off the dance floor. They danced to all the greats—Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey. The romance lasted for several months. They fell hopelessly in love. He went off to war and got himself killed. End of story.
    When Donny asked to see their love letters, so he’d have a tangible record of his parents’ history and get a better mental picture of his father, she told him they must have gotten lost after all those years.
    Looking around the condo gave me the creeps, because I didn’t think now was the time for my mother to be dwelling on painful memories of her first dead love while she was still recovering from her grief over her second one.
    But how could I be critical when I had a lifetime of memories with my dad, and Donny didn’t even have one real memory to cling to. So he’d created his own memories in